Design Ideas, Anyone?

Announcement: 

To those of who silently stalk these pages, I would like to make a proposal. 

Recently I cleared my blog’s design template. The thing was just too baroque, even for my tastes. Therefore, if anyone out there (yes, you) would like to contribute in this capacity, please send me a message and we’ll proceed from there. Agreed? Good.

M.

Andy Warhol (Glib)

More explanations than you would expect from Andy.

New Book: My Novella

I have just published a novella through Lulu. Eventually, the book will be available through Amazon.com. Please give it (buy) read or suggest an alternative vocation.

Here's a blurb:

A novella, Volta is the story of a washed-out junky musician, the stigmata and mass delusion. Written in crisp, cinematic prose, the story is interwoven with Gnostic theology and noir scenes. Possibly more parody than reality, Volta is a modest work by an ambitious young author.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/melek-bonpartie-cocteau/volta/paperback/product-21285080.html

*

Reading through the manuscript today, I discovered the possibility of an unexplored subplot. So expect excerpts in the near future. To be honest, I don't think I'm to sell more than five copies; but validation is nice, isn’t it? 

An interview with author Dennis Cooper. If you're not familiar with his work, start with the Miles Cycle. 

A Short Theatre Scene for Three Women and A Man

Club interior. Bouncer stands at the door. Three women stand center stage, holding drinks. They are giddy with intoxication. Patrons mumble among themselves in the far back.

WOMAN 1. He wants to fuck me.

WOMAN 2. He wants to fuck you.

WOMAN 3. He wants to fuck someone. You , maybe.

WOMAN 1. He doesn’t want to fuck you.

WOMAN 2. He doesn’t want to fuck you.

WOMAN 3. He wants to fuck someone. Me, maybe. But maybe he wants to fuck you.

WOMAN 2. Me? No he wants to fuck you.

WOMAN 1. I know he wants to fuck me. But he doesn’t want to fuck you.

WOMAN 3. Maybe. Maybe he does. Maybe he’s eyeing me right now and you only think he’s looking at you. Or maybe he’s looking at you with no intention of fucking you. Maybe he fucked someone like you and is now looking to fuck someone like me. Maybe he doesn’t want to fuck, but be fucked, like those creepy old men who hang out in public bathrooms. Maybe he has fucked—or has been fucked already—and is in post-coital recumbence.

Pause. Women suck on their straws.

WOMAN 1. I still think he wants to fuck me.

WOMAN 2. I think he wants to fuck you, too.

WOMAN 3. Maybe you should fuck him.

WOMAN 1. I think I will fuck him.

WOMAN 2. I think you should fuck him.

WOMAN 3. Go ahead: fuck him.

WOMAN 1. Hold my drink.

Extends hands mechanically and releases drink; it hits the floor.

WOMAN 1. Okay. I’m going to fuck him.

Gestures in the direction of the back wall but the trips over a broken heel. She falls and rests on the floor.

WOMAN 1. Fuck! My heel is fucked!

BOUNCER advances.

BOUNCER. All right. Get the fuck out.

WOMAN 2. But she just came—I mean: she just got here.

BOUNCER. I don’t care.

(OFFSTAGE. I will know!)

BOUNCER. (Turns to door.) What the fuck is going on outside?

WOMAN 2. But she just came—I mean: she just got here.

WOMAN 1. Fuck! My heel is fucked!

WOMAN 3. Maybe. (Laughs hysterically.) 

(c) 2013

Alain-Robbe Grillet for Mood

I’ve always admired Grillet for his cinematic work, but his literature is just as good. He employed what I can only described as “cinematic” prose to describe details events in a carefully constructed scenario. Isn’t this the today to go, as writers, today? Modern society is drenched with filmbluraydvds and we’re still pondering the paucity of fiction unhampered by excessive (often syntactic) stylistic experimentation. I hope to see the emergence of a truly “cinematic” novel one day, and I thank Grillet for the initiating the undertaking. 

Theme #3: Jam

Please rate and subscribe on Youtube.

Andy & A Burger

Theme #1

Please rate and subscribe on YouTube.

Guttertrash Ballerina

Please rate and subscribe on You Tube.

Cheap Vodka (Poem)

A melodramatic

Pirouette, colliding

with the

garbage dumpster.

Dreamt spiral,

Vomit.

Toilet. Sink. Shower.

The final heave;

the diaphragm groans

like a broken

accordion, carnival

antiphon.

(c) 2013

"Thusly" (Poem)

Samson-bound between book shelves,

in the New Aeon Section, a pale

youth nourishes his ego on 

bombastic conjunctive adverbs.

An imagined sea lion balances a 

striped ball on the tip of his

snout & slaps his fins in

frenzied approval. Arf. Arf. 

Though absent, the ring master 

smiles from the realms of irony.

He holds the bearded lady by the 

burl & orders a reception for

the new act. 

(c) 2013

Last Act (Story)

Hours before the second run of his premiere play, Last Act, Michael sat in his apartment snorting heroin through a split McDonald’s straw. The occasion was a mystery, as he wasn’t celebrity or bemoaning a recent change in his circumstances. Michael was simply doing something he liked; although the thought hovered in the back of his mind—a persistent shift in conscience, if you will, whenever he got fucked up—that maybe genetics were at fault. Mom, though strongly opposed to use of intoxicants in general, had struck an unlikely compromise with prescription medication. Of course, Uncle practically died an alcoholic even though the family maintains that the cause of death is a mystery. But, Michael figured, he had at least this going for him: he had finally taken an important step towards a long and fruitful career in the theatre, dubious though its accolades may be. And he recognized this simple truism from experience. The play concerns a homeless junky who struggles to nurture his addiction and an abandoned infant one stormy night. The public, following in tow of televised criticism, was divided. Some venues opted to cancel scheduled performances because of protests (primarily from Christian groups) and wanton boycotts of already struggling businesses. (Patrons do call the theatre the “glorious cripple,” after all.) But Michael had the unusual distinction of being edgy and controversial which, in university speaking-engagements alone, graced him with the finances to buy a new car. Pretty soon he planned on moving to a flat, alone, and establishing himself as a professional writer. For the moment, however, he contented himself by rocking on the legs of the unvarnished chair in the dining area, feeling cold and weightless, as if a gentle gust could precariously knock him off balance and he’d disappear into thin air. His vision was hazy, and his perception of colors and lights shifted with an almost watercolor, undulating ripple.

As Michael floated in this wave of sensation, the apartment door opened and Ben, the roommate, appeared in the kitchen.

“What’s up with you?” Ben said, sliding his keys across the marble counter-top.

“Nothing. Just thinking.” Michael said.

“Well, when are you taking off?” Ben said.

“For…” Michael said.

Ben shrugged his brow. “The premiere, dumbass.”

“Oh, in an hour or so,” Michael said, his eyes glossy with chemical relief.

“Well, let me know when you decide to head off. I’m going to get ready,” Ben said, disappearing down the corridor.

Michael leaned forward and made the chair stationary. He drummed his fingers on the table and, standing up, decided he would at least shave for this thing. He had meant to shave earlier but something in the mirror, his reflection, really, sickened him to the core. He recognized the eyes—they were his—but not the frame from which they stared back at him. That man looked deranged, a patina of crusty heroin still decorating his left nostril. He turned the faucet off and left the bathroom. His spirits were renewed now with enthusiasm; however, when he reached for the bathroom doorknob, his foot hesitated at the door. A familiar nausea stirred in the pit of his stomach and he turned running to his bedroom, where he crossed the threshold and hastily locked the door behind him. Was he being chased? He felt he was; but he didn’t know by what or whom. He walked to his writing desk and opened a grainy envelope of heroin. With a pen cap, he scooped up four small gooey lumps and siphoned the powder (and he got this shit on the cheap, lucky to find a generous dealer). His head crooked back in euphoria and, with it, his body, as he collapsed on the bed like an embattled wall of bricks. He lay on his back and starred at the ceiling, the stucco whirling, not the ceiling fan. Then, the words: “I’ve finally made it” left his lips in a dry rattle; and the flow of thoughts—similar in texture to the lights and colors he’d perceived earlier—combined in an explosive kaleidoscopic intellectual complex so that Michael  felt his body whirling now, the room, the universe, too; yet it was all the product of a self-fulfilling prophecy made flesh in the mirror, that he saw the composite rotting vestiges of his identity, laced with cheap thread, threadbare, and it almost had to happen (no?) since he had lived the damned thing in order for the damned thing to exist. Or so it seemed now as the mist began to cloud his eyes; the play was an epitaph for the story he was. And it was ending quickly.

Not long after closing his eyes, Michael began to hear distant voices beyond the bedroom door. They were cheering. Curious, he stood up and stumbled towards the source. The voices rose in volume—whistling and clapping now—and he opened the door onto a well-lit stage. He reeled backwards when a stage light caught his gaze. A silhouetted mass of people stood in ovation. Michael took a bow and drew final breath.

(c) 2013